Photo Credit: Cuffe & Taylor
Words: Liesel Bradbury

There’s many a full-circle moment to be had for artists in the music industry, be it through interactions with enthused fans, or a return to an iconic performance location years later. For Ethel Cain’s headline show at Halifax’s Piece Hall, this sentiment rings true. Having supported indie supergroup Boygenius there in the summer of 2023, her presence at the venue saw her play solo to one of her largest UK audiences yet. Now bearing two new records, Perverts and Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You, Ethel Cain has returned to the Piece Hall for another divine performance.

From its Georgian architecture to its grandeur at sunset, there’s no venue more suited to house the folky ambience of Ethel Cain’s Willoughby Tucker Forever tour and give her a warm welcome back to the North.

Opening for the night were British Indie Rock band Bar Italia, whose building energy throughout the evening primed the crowd for their headliner. With an edginess that bled through in layered guitar pedals and the trio’s multi-vocalist tracks, the band gave a punchy set to mark the start of an exceptional show.

Cain’s entrance with ‘Sunday Morning’ threw the crowd back to her 2019 EP ‘Golden Age’, with lilting vocals that floated atop mounds of tufted grasses and rusty oil drums. As beams of fluorescent lighting mingled with the evening glow blessing the Piece Hall, it was immediately obvious how Ethel Cain’s shows shine on the outdoor stage. And from her sun-kissed audience’s chanting and singing earning them the title of the tour’s ‘loudest crowd yet,’ it’s clear her fans were thrilled to have her back in Yorkshire after a long three years.

The setlist was undoubtedly a spectacle in itself, blending a handful of hard-hitting favourites, ‘American Teenager,’ ‘Crush’ and ‘Thoroughfare’ through a mostly track-for-track run of her most recent record, Willoughby Tucker. As each song led seamlessly into the next, the performance let just a small portion of her intricate discography unfold as an entire, artfully curated experience.

Whilst her vocals in studio recordings are exceptional, you’d be wrong to assume their quality is capped there. Waxing downright sermonic in the emotional peaks of the show, ‘Nettles’ and ‘Tempest,’ and during her closer ‘A House in Nebraska,’ the audience were hanging on every haunting lyric and soaring riff.

The drowsy descent of ‘Dust Bowl’ into the thematic pit of her set, ‘Punish (Demo II),’ ‘Ptolemaea’ and ‘Gibson Girl’ was a particular highlight of the show, as the droning intro of ‘Perverts’ echoed under Cain’s warped vocalisations. But where the atmosphere sunk into a thrumming bleakness, it just as readily rose again as Cain guided her audience, preacher-like, through ‘Ptolemaea’’s guttural scream and droning outro. Despite the venue’s open-airedness, it was a moment that felt impenetrably contained within the Piece Hall’s four walls as a shared, cathartic experience.

Ethel Cain knows how to captivate a crowd: leading them through wispy instrumentals, vulnerable lyrics and dynamic highs, her second performance at Halifax’s Piece Hall was an enchanting addition to her slew of fantastic live performances. It was an incredibly special night for all in attendance, and one that many are surely hopeful to re-live with any future shows she may be planning.